Kitesurfing fatalities 65 worldwide and growing

Yeh...... stop teasing us

Makes me wana cry looking at those metro WA wind graphs... evil.

**** i love some of the lines from that movie...

Come back MRRT! I wanted you to look up some extremely important information on how many windsurfers have gone into comas from doing such a mindnumbing and boring sport.

Quote of the day... *ahem* ..not... Hey, Lovey (is that what User calls you when you boys snuggle up?) have you actually seen windsurfing? As in, wavesailing, or windsurfing of any kind done by people who are good at it? The skill level involved, the sheer power of it, the challenges, and the excitement - tea-bagging does not come close to matching up. For anyone to suggest that kiting is in any way "better than" windsurfing is just ridiculous. You are waterskiing and bungee jumping behind a big kite. How can so many people suddenly be doing such big "airs"? Have they been practicing in secret all these years? Or is it just the easiest thing since riding a tricycle?

Sure it must be fun, otherwise people wouldn't do it. And there's nothing wrong with it. But try to understand, you are unconsciously following a trend (hands up who had a BMX in the early 80s? A skateboard in the late 80s? Really liked "grunge" in the early 90s? Got into hip hop in the late 90s? etc...) and this trend is a GOOD ONE because it's so damned EASY compared to learning to skate or surf or windsurf well enough to cruise around and do jumps and stuff. This trend has real potential because it looks "hardcore" yet anyone can get into it easily! I'm living on a beach where there's several kitesurf and windsurf centres , and kiting is the biggest tourist craze ever. They come for a week or two and become Kiters, masters of what's billed as "the new surfing". Mums, Dads, fat chicks, you name it! At last they can do something "cool" without having to put in all the years of hard slog! But how "cool" will it be when the hype eventually wears off, and you realize... you're hanging onto a bar and waterskiing. You're bungee jumping too high too easily. The younger dudes have found a new fad. You're bored.

You want to see "radical" for real? Youtube Polakow windsurf, Naish windsurf, Kevin Pritchard windsurf, and go from there.

Happy kiting!

i never said kiting was better - i don't have to.

I just look at the guys i kite with now who used to windsurf for 25 years who get a glazed look and foam at the mouth after every kite session - their behaviour tells me which is the better sport.

Boring? we've never felt more alive, mate.

Sorry guys, couldn't resist dropping back in since the talk has turned back to windsurfing.

I think you must have had the wrong gear. I was out at Woodies yesterday afternoon (Sunday) in what seabreeze reckoned was 20-25knot winds at Garden Island (though standing on the groin, my anemometer was registering only 10-16knots - go figure) and I was blasting the entire time from 4pm-8pm on my old 6.1m Neil Pryde RX1 sail and did enough decent wave jumps to give myself a crick neck today. As usual, no kiter who sailed along the beach was as fast (though they did bigger jumps than me of course) - any kiters reading this who could verify that?

It sounds like you've been going to the wrong locations too. Did you used to spend all your time on the river or something? (I wasted too many years of my life doing that I'm afraid). My wife and I usually fly a 4.5m and 5m sail at Safety Bay or Woodman's Point though our 6m and 6.1m sails get a reasonable amount of use as well (and every now and then I get out the 7m). Lancelin, Margarets and Geraldton are all not that far away from Perth either an you can't tell me Corros isn't one of the best places in the world for wave jumping?

Here's me on a typical day at Safety Bay with my 5m sail. You don't even need waves to have fun:




I can't speak about the rest of Aus, but I've found WA a lot better than that. The Freo Doctor is usually pretty good, though this current run of humid days has I think stalled most of us now.

Also, I found my 12m kite needed as much wind to have fun on as my 6m windsurfer sail. I had been hoping to use the kite when it was too light to windsurf, but it seems you need something between 16m and 20m to get going in really light conditions - would that be correct? Is it still lots of fun sailing such a big kite or is it a bit like sailing a big 10m windsurfer sail on a big board?



Each to his or her own - I've found them both to be great fun.

-Mart

I heard somewhere a hell of a lot of people die on the toilet ...

Yes, and its generally expert bathers.